Gotta hand it to Gene Simmons...
If there's a way to monetize something the KISS Demon is gonna do it.
Gene is attempting to patent the "devil horns" hand gesture. Apparently he has already filed an application with the United States Patent and TradeMark Office to mark the sign of the horns hand movement as his own. On the application he describes the movement as “a hand gesture with the index and small fingers extended upward and the thumb extended perpendicular."
According to Wikipedia, on the cover of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine album (1969), the cartoon of John Lennon's right hand is making the sign above Paul McCartney's head.
Beginning in the early 1970s, the horns were known as the "P-Funk sign" to fans of Parliament-Funkadelic. It was used by George Clinton and Bootsy Collins as the password to the Mothership.
And of course there's Ronnie James Dio who began using the sign soon after joining Black Sabbath in 1979.
None of that seems to matter to Simmons, as he claims that he first used it on November 14, 1974, which is when Kiss were touring in support of their second album, Hotter Than Hell. Simmons later flashed the hand gesture on the cover of 1977’s Love Gun. So naturally he should get the patent. Right?